Liberty to excel

When it came time for James to assume the throne, he left Scotland and traveled down to London and on the way there was a Millenary Convention.

One thousand preachers had signed a petition to the new king asking for consideration of a long list of grievances, suggestions and things that needed to be done both in the church and in the culture. He met with those preachers at Hampton Court. They used the address because of its massive size.

One of the things that came out of the meeting was James’ agreement they would produce one final translation of the Scripture. Bancroft’s Rules were the rules by which the translators had to operate. James selected out the best of the available scholars.

Jordan says, “You have to understand you have a group of people who first came out of Bloody Mary’s persecutions. They go into the bright light of Queen Elizabeth for all that time. Well, when you come out of persecution into liberty, what do you do? You tend to excel.

“So there had been this 50-year period where they had advancements and learning. And you know how Christians are. If you’re giving them liberty and advancements and learning, there’s also fighting: ‘Well, I think it says this. No, it says this.’ Let’s be honest, that’s how we are, but that’s part of the exercise of learning.

“If we didn’t disagree with one another, we’d never find out something was right and something was wrong. You ever thought about that? A verse in Corinthians says, ‘For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.’

“The way you try something is you take and cross examine it. So when you look at controversy that way, not as a destructive mean, nasty, personal thing, but as the natural course of growing, all of a sudden it isn’t quite so bad.

“The Geneva Bible, for example, had become the most popular English bible of the time. To translate it they went to Geneva, headquarters of John Calvin. Calvin’s son-in-law headed the group that translated it and the people in most of Protestantism made it real popular because it was the right size and it had a lot of study notes. But the study notes were all extremely Calvinistic. So the Calvinists loved it, and if you weren’t a Calvinist, you didn’t like it.

“By the way, King James was not a Calvinist! In the book he wrote to his son, he warned him about the influences of Calvinism. One of the reasons you will discover that so many people who oppose the KJV today, people like James White, for example, are five-point Calvinists.

“If you go through a list of people who are on the other side, in the quote intellectual-scholarly (that’s what they think of themselves) and ask who are they and what they believe, you’ll find consistently the overwhelming majority are extreme Calvinists.

“Now why would they not like the KJV? Because they had a bible that was the most popular bible of the time that the KJV was written specifically to replace! The Bishops’ Bible was supposed to do it but it didn’t. The KJV did!

“By 1640, that was the last year the Geneva Bible was printed. In less than 30 years, the Authorized Version had supplanted very other English version. None of them were printed again as popularly to be distributed. The KJV was the bible that took over the market.

“The pilgrims, when they came over on the Mayflower, they brought a Geneva Bible because they came before 1611.

“King James authorized the founding of Jamestown, Va. That town was founded in honor of him and he authorized it, and when you read the dedication, what he wrote had everything to do with the gospel. So here’s a guy interested in seeing the gospel get out.

“In James’ book ‘Demonology,’ published in Edinburgh in 1597, he wrote, ‘The fearful abounding at this time in this country of these detestable slaves of the devil, the witches or enchanters, hath moved me, beloved reader, to dispatch, in post this following treatise of mine . . . without regeneration, men slip into slavery and into the horrors of hell. Men have obtained to a great perfection of learning and yet remaining overbased, alas, of the spirit of regeneration and fruits thereof, tread upon the slippery and uncertain scale of curiosity, becoming bondslaves to their mortal enemy and their knowledge. For all they pursue therof is nothing increased except in knowing evil and the horrors of hell for punishment thereof. Christians do not demand revelations from God, visions, or inquire into things which He hath not revealed to us by the Scriptures. It becometh us to be content with a humble ignorance, they being things not necessary for our salvation. Many of the witches’ art are of such silly illusions like to the little transubstantiational god in the papist mass that I could never believe in.’

“That would get him in a little trouble, see? Now he was the King of Scotland writing that in a book that became an international best-seller. You think, ‘Okay, would he have a target on his back?!’ So all I’m trying to get you to understand is that he was a Bible-believer. He did not know everything we know.

“He writes, ‘Prophecies and visions are now ceased. All of the spirits that appear in these forms are evil. Two symptoms of devil possession are incredible strength and speaking of sundry languages, which the patient is known by them that were inquired with him never to have learned.’

“You thought tongue-talking started at the Azusa Street Mission in 19-whatever. Old James is saying, ‘They were doing that over here and it’s of the devil!’

“My point to you is James believed ‘the whole Scripture was dictated by God’s Spirit. The scripture must be an infallible ground to all true Christians.’

“In 1605, when he visited Oxford for first time, they put, at his request, Bible verses all over the place. Don’t fall into the idea that he was nut case; some fowl-mouthed cussing guy over here looking for some child to bed. That’s not who he was. He was a Protestant; a Bible Believer.

“When he wrote his son in the book for his boy, he said, ‘Praying God as you are regenerated and born in Him anew, so you may rise to Him and be sanctified in Him forever with garments washed in the shed blood of the lamb. Remember, my son, salvation is the free gift of God, as Paul sayeth.’ ”